Spam Flood Blog

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Okoro Media Systems has been Blu-ray savvy for some time now, but apparently it's looking to bring the peace with a dual-format combo drive in its BX series of HTPCs. The BX100 resides in a fairly slim 4.13-inch tall enclosure and includes an Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 350-watt power supply, optional seven-inch touchscreen, your choice of operating system and media center software, 500GB of hard drive space, NVIDIA's 256MB 8500 GT graphics card, a total of three TV tuners, and a smorgasbord of ports including PS/2, FireWire, serial, optical / coaxial digital audio outputs, two DVI ports, VGA, component, S-Video, composite, Ethernet, and four USB 2.0 connectors. The beefier BX300 steps up to a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 CPU, 1TB of storage spanning two 500GB drives, NVIDIA's 256MB GeForce 8600 GTS graphics card, and a 7.1-channel sound card. Both systems look to be available as we speak with a built-in HD DVD / Blu-ray combo drive, and while the BX100 can be yours for $2,995, the base BX300 will run you an extra $600.

[Via PCJoint]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones

Hungry for some more pics of Motorola's RAZR 2? We thought you might be. Head on over to Engadget Mobile, we've got a boat-load more shots of the RAZR 2 V8 and some initial thoughts on the handset. That should tide you over until every carrier in the friggin world starts making plans to stock the thing.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It looks like a fairly big shoe has dropped in the racketeering case against Best Buy and Microsoft, as a lawyer for the former company recently testified that he altered some documents before turning them over to plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The lawyer, Timothy Block, also said that no one else at either his law firm or at Best Buy were aware that he had changed the documents. As the AP reports, however, this follows complaints from the judge in the case that Best Buy has not been forthcoming with documents related to the lawsuit. The case itself, for those not up to speed, accuses Best Buy of signing up customers for MSN trial subscriptions without their knowledge, who then faced credit card charges after the trial period was over. For its part, Microsoft is being accused of allowing the practice to continue after it was aware of the problem. It doesn't look the case will be winding up anytime soon, however, as it's now been stayed while Best Buy tries to find some new outside counsel.

[Via Tech Dirt]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Portable Audio, Wireless

LTB Audio Systems has been doing this wireless headphone gig for quite some time, and while its products don't exactly appear as the most prestigious in the world, all's fair if it gets the job done. The firm's latest contraption, dubbed the Q-Bean, consists of a wired transceiver that plugs into your computer via USB and a wireless key fob-sized device that pumps out tunes to the connected headphones or earbuds sans wires. The system operates on the 2.4GHz band and LTB promises that the stream is completely uncompressed, and if the idea of cordless headphones weren't enough to sell you on it, it also includes a built-in microphone for Windows Live communication or other VoIP duties. Reportedly, users of Windows, OS X, and Linux won't be bothered to install any fancy drivers for this here apparatus to function as advertised, but it still seems a bit lackluster considering the $119.95 asking price.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

According to unconfirmed reports stemming from Taiwan (where else?), Michael Dell is pulling his company out of the LCD TV biz to return focus to its core PC efforts. Unlike Apple's ridiculous desktop display markup, Dell has concentrated on providing low-cost computer and home theater offerings, something particularly dangerous in the cutthroat LCD TV market, so it's not a total surprise to see 'em bail now. Dell is purportedly set to stop manufacture this month, so we should know soon enough how legitimate these reports are, a Dell spokeswoman wouldn't comment on the rumors, only stating that Dell currently sells LCD TVs in a limited number of markets.

 

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Office Depfice Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Household

[Via Inhabitat]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops

Here it comes, that periodic rush of excitement brought on by Apple event banners being put up by unwitting convention center workers, prompting rabid discussion and even on that rare occasion actual product knowledge. Unfortunately, none of that to see here, unless you want to try and read into the starry backgrounds on the Leopard posters, or the particular shade of white being used for the Apple logo. Be our guest, we've got bigger, more historic fish to fry. Keep reading for another shot of the action, the source link was down the last time we checked.

[Thanks, Otsego_Undead]

Continue reading WWDC 2007 banners caught on camera, reveal absolutely nothing

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Anyone who's a fan of ABC's Lost knows the perils of going to a specialist for help getting pregnant: because the timid doctor doesn't want to tell your husband -- who's employed by your violent, mob-tied father -- that he's infertile, he'll be forced to lie and initiate a series of events that can only culminate with you stranded on a spooky uncharted island full of polar bears and hostile natives. Well the folks at Genosis Inc. are sick and tired of family planning-related plane crashes, and have just received FDA approval for a product that should put an end to these senseless tragedies once and for all: the Fertell home fertility test. Capable of detecting both the concentration of motile sperm as well as a hormone which indicates egg quality, Fertell promises to give fairly accurate results for both him and her in under a half-hour -- and though it's not being publicized as a substitute for "professional evaluations," it will at least save a few men like Hank Hill the embarrassment of having to discuss their narrow urethras. The Fertell kit should be available immediately at your favorite local drug store or black-market pharmacy, priced at an even hundred bucks.

[Via Medgadget]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Robots

While we're still a bit wary about letting a robotic M.D. get to work on our operating table, we certainly wouldn't trust those two-timing humanoids to sufficiently repair one of their own. Thankfully, the US Army seemingly agrees, as the volunteer-staffed Joint Repair Facility at Camp Victory provides human TLC for robots that receive injuries in the heat of battle. The facility is mostly responsible for mending and rebuilding devices that protect live soldiers from encountering improvised explosive devices, and it has reportedly increased exponentially in use and size since its inception just three years back. Notably, the gurus that work here are famous for repairing even the most obliterated of robots, and while they did admit that some bots are too damaged to repair, those are "few and far between."

[Via CNET]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Our brethren over at Engadget Chinese just went hands-on with the Via NanoBook at Computex. Better yet, they seem to have unearthed the other, US-bound OEM: FIC (First International Computer) as it's known in Taiwan, or Everex as we know 'em Stateside. Makes sense given Everex's penchant for VIA C7-M procs in their StepNote series of laptops. The FIC CE260 they played with even had a prototype Skype-phone module in place of that oddball world clock insert seen previously. Also new is a date: they were told to expect the unit to show up in China and Europe (presumably under the Packard Bell branding) sometime in August. Engadget Chinese has tons of pics and first-hand impressions so be sure to click the "read" link below for a quick trip across the Pacific.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: GPS, Portable Audio, Portable Video

What's with Digital Cube and the number 43? 42, that we could understand but why do we need an S43, T43, G43, and now this, the i-Station M43 all from the same company? Is Digital Cube trying to say that each is one better than the answer to the ultimate quimate question? Anyway, the new M43 PMP flaunts a 4.3-inch touchscreen LCD, up to 60GB disk, DMB mobile TV, and integrated GPS and e-Book reader depending upon Classic, Dic, or Navi model chosen. Prices range from ₩300,000 to ₩400,000 or about $323 to $431 in mean green.

[Via Akihabara News]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Samsung is showing another new sport-minded camcorder this morning with this, the new VM-X300. All we know is that it records MPEG-4 video at 720 x 480 pixels and 30fps. Oh, and it can start recording in only 3 seconds after power on. Storage, sensor type, battery life, price, availability... those are just details. These are for sportos hear, so Samsung doesn't want to confuse them with too many facts. Just stare at the pretty girl, everything will be ok.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

Here it is, the first complete review of Apple's new 15-inch MacBook Pro. You know, Santa Rosa platform, LED backlighting, and new nVidia 8600M GT graphics. Right, that one, launched just a few days ago. The kids at Notebook Review took the unit 'round the block with an emphasis on reviewing it for "people considering the MacBook Pro as an alternative option to a Windows based laptop." In fact, it's the reviewer's first Mac review. So how did it go? Well, to start with, the "screen is without a doubt the best I've ever seen on a laptop, and better than a lot of desktop monitors I use," says the reviewer. The MBP also came away with "impressive scores" whether running OS X or 32-bit Vista via Boot Camp. The new nVidia GPU smoked the old ATI X1600-based MBP by a factor of three in 3DMark06 tests -- well above the 57% increase claimed by Apple. Unfortunately, thtely, the review did not go head-to-head with same-spec'd Santa Rosa models from say IBM or Dell to see how Apple's tweaks to the gear compare. The case remained "mostly cool" throughout use although it did pickup a "good bit of warmth" while benchmarking. Still it was not enough to remove the MBP from the reviewer's lap with average temps for the CPU cores kicking right around 49-degrees centigrade. During normal usage at 50% brightness (which is not very bright as we've seen), the battery eeked-out about 4-hours which dropped to 3-hours after dialing up the brightness to 100%. The only real nit is the weight, which at 5.4-pounds (2.45-kgs) is becoming rather pathetic by modern standards yet remains the smallest offering in Apple's pro laptop lineup. Still, the reviewer now considers himself "one happy switcher" and that's about as good of a rating as you can get.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

We've definitely seen some shady reports of a quad-core laptop make the rounds, and it looks like geographically misnamed Canadian laptop outfit Eurocom is going to be first off the line with a Intel Core 2 Quad notebook. A Eurocom spokesperson apparently confirmed to Laptoping that the company is prepping a quad-core Phantom D900C -- which probably means that monster-laptop Clevo (or whichever company is their ODM) is working on a quad-core D900C, since the Phantom is yet another rebrand. Laptoping says the 17-inch machine will feature a 2.4GHz Q6600 "Kentsfield" Core 2 Quad and dual SLI-capable GeForce Go 8700 or Quadro FX3500 graphics, an HD DVD drive, and up to three drives that can be run as a RAID 0/1/5 array -- all of which means battery life on this 11.9-pound monster will probably run down faster than a 6-minute mile. Still, the idea of stuffing four cores into a laptop gets us all excited, but the current $3,200 pricetag on the dual-core Phantom doesn't bode too well for the double the power.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming

It's not like we didn't see it coming or anything what with Sony's game division -- home of the PS3 -- recently posting a $1.91 billion loss for the year. But man, our hearts go out to those whose jobs at Sony Computer Entertainment are now on the chopping block. Thing is, Sony, while announcing plans to cut jobs in the US, is only turning the screw deeper by not providing any details. The move comes as Sony struggles to keep up with Nintendo which again snagged top-honors for the 4th consecutive month in the US market: 360,000 Wiis sold to the PS3's 82,000 while Microsoft sold 174,000 Xbox 360s. The gap between the Wii and PS3 sales in Japan is just as bad, if not worse. Fortunately for Sony, their Bravia LCD TVs, VAIO computers, and Handycams are all doing well enough to (mostly) offset the PS3 related losses. We'll have to wait and see if Sony's summer game catalog, bigger disks, and possible price cuts can reverse SCE's fortunes.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: GPS, Wireless

We'll admit, Zoombak's a bit late the Fido tracking game, but we're sure that pet owners won't complain about a bit more competition in the pet location biz. According to documentation at the FCC, this here device is most effective on animals that weight 15 pounds or more, and essentially consists of a wireless transceiver and Li-ion cell wrapped within a semi-rugged, water resistant enclosure. The 73-gram box straps around your pet's neck and purportedly communicates with a variety of GSM bands in order to keep you notified about your animal's location. Unfortunately, details surrounding the actual operation of the device is still scant, but it shouldn't be too long now before Zoombak is cleared to offer these up for (straying) pet lovers everywhere.

[Thanks, Rich]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: HDTV, Portable Video

The Pinnacle PCTV USB Stick that you may have grown quite fond of over the past year has finally decided to get with the times, as the newest iteration throws HD capability into the minuscule tuner while still ringing up a penny under a Benjamin. The Pinnacle PCTV HD Stick steps it down a notch from its Professional sibling, but still allows users to "view live television on their PC with pause, rewind, and fast-forward timeshifting functionality." Pinnacle's latest USB 2.0 tuner is "about the size of a key," gets all the necessary juice right from the USB port, supports NTSC and ATSC broadcasts, and comes bundled with the firm's TVCenter Pro software. Best of all, this no frills portable TV tuner can get live programming on your laptop or desktop right now for a mere $99.99.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Robots

While some researchers over in Raleigh are having fun tinkering with PlayStation 3 farms and dodging the RIAA, NC State's Drs. Tushar Ghosh and John Muth are occupied building prototypes with fibers they say "resemble human muscle and can exhibit muscle-like capabilities when electrical currents are applied." The duo sees the development as paving the way for "advancements and potential applications in robotics, smart textiles, prosthetics, and biomedicines," as they have reportedly found that polyurethane and silicone tube structures shaped like human muscle strands can be manipulated with electricity. It was noted, however, that the current models are using strands "roughly the size of a pencil lead," but the next step is to scale down the fibers and integrate them into a robotic Mr. and Mrs. Wuf.

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Storage

You dealt with it when Apple switched you from MFS to HFS, and again you were switched from HFS to HFS+ (and even journaled HFS+), and you'll deal with it again: according to Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz (whom you may know for his totally righteous pony tail), Apple is going to use Sun's crazy advanced ZFS filesystem when they move users over to Leopard. The material advantages may not be immediately apparent to the average user (when was the last time you whipped up a multi-exabyte file?), but it will do some excellentay things like storage pooling (aka virtual storage), block-journaling, and plenty of other nerdy things about which you can read up on elsewhere. Expect to hear more about this one next Monday at WWDC.

Watch - Schwartz talks it up [Via MacRumors]
Read - More about why this is a Good Thing (TM)

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Desktops

While Itronix's latest GoBook should handle your workload whilst on the go, Tangent is hoping that you'll look its direction for a rugged PC in your home or underground bunker. Quite frankly, the company claims that its Rugged Mini Fanless machine is "designed to take a beating," which apparently includes the ability to withstand "shock, dust, vibration, humidity, extreme cold and heat, and even electromagnetic interference." Externally, this thing is certainly on the opposite end of sexy, but it's the inside that counts; packed within is your choice of an Intel Celeron M, Core Solo, or Core Duo processor, up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Intel's GMA950 integrated graphics set, up to 120GB of hard drive space, optional external DVD writer, 802.11a/b/g, FireWire, a pair of PS/2 ports, six USB 2.0 connectors, VGA / DVI outputs, audio in / out, and Ethernet. Furthermore, you'll purportedly find "no moving parts" (aside from that HDD spindle, eh?) as its cooled by a passive convection-based system, and you can snag one right now with Windows XP Pro for $1,195.

[Via Gearlog]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!